


I am folded, and unfolded, and unfolding.

by Mellaithwen



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Community: then_theres_us, F/M, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-17
Updated: 2010-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-15 19:26:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1316485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellaithwen/pseuds/Mellaithwen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She smiles, head propped up on her hand as she lies on her side and lets the Doctor fold. The orange glow of the fire sets her hair alight and casts shades of burnt marigolds across the static birds sitting solemn on her bare skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I am folded, and unfolded, and unfolding.

 

They’re running, always running. Running through the deserted streets of Earth in the late eighties, that shouldn’t be deserted at all but everyone’s cowering and hiding from what they think is a natural disaster, but what is actually a race of co-dependant aliens who travel in such large swarms that they rather look like a wide tornado—

 _Running_ , when suddenly the Doctor stops and smiles at the quaint display in the shop window ahead. Rose stares incredulously, running back to remind him of the angry hoard of aliens racing (well, _gliding_ menacingly) towards them.

“Doctor—!”

“Look, Rose! Aren’t they brilliant?” He beams, pointing to the craft shop with origami figures sitting idly by. There are stacks of square paper mounted on the windowsill and all around small figures of birds and animals and flowers and strange little shapes in all kinds of sizes hang from string and twirl around in slow circles.

“Yes, wonderful, brilliant, _whatever_ , have you got a death wish or something?”

“Well that’s just ridic—”

“Come _on_!”

And they’re off.

Running and jumping over hedges (which they don’t do often enough, as far as the Doctor’s concerned) and once they make it to the TARDIS the Doctor can work his magic to hold the beings still until he can reason with them. He’s relatively sure that will work.

When it does, (because the Doctor got rather impatient and resorted to shouting quite a bit) Rose hurries off to the little craft shop and buys as much origami paper as she can carry without a bag. She walks into the TARDIS, puts them down at the Doctor’s feet, and says “There, now go be brilliant in the corner, I’m off to bed.”

 

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It becomes their little tradition. The paper. Finding new colours, bright and shining and dark and mesmerising. And when Rose can’t stay awake for much longer, but the Doctor is still brimming with far too much excitement for someone of his age, she grabs a pack, and more often than not, throws it at his head.

Waiting for Rose, he ensures each fold feels like an age, each triangle symmetrical, and each square divine. He keeps going until Rose wakes up and they return to their adventures flying across the stars that aren’t made of paper, searching for something that was there along.

 

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“I used to make paper aeroplanes in school.” Rose tells him one day as she stares at the Doctor’s collection; His own paper zoo. “Not the easy kind, mind. The kind that would _really_ fly. They used to make it right to the front of the class and land on the teacher’s desk.” Rose grins as she remembers crouching low in her chair with the boys at the back of the room, combining all of their aviation knowledge into that single piece of white a4 paper.

“Origami for delinquents.” The Doctor smirks and Rose nudges him in return.

He’s made nearly every geometric pattern he can think of, and even ones he can’t. Sometimes Rose thinks he’s making it up as he goes along, experimenting, but then at the end of it all there’s always something wonderful in his palm, and he’s always handing it to _her_.

 

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“What’s the count so far?” Rose asks, yawning and joining the Doctor on the floor as he folds his paper cranes.

“Three hundred and seventy-two and I thought you were in bed.”

“It’s actually pretty comfy down here.” Rose mumbles, lying under the console, staring up at the many hundreds of wires, all connected and twisted.

“Well of course it is. Why do you think I spend so much time down there fiddling!”

“Funnily enough I thought you were fixing things.” She replies wryly.

“That too.” The Doctor winks, running off to find a blanket and returning to find his companion sleeping soundly beneath the gentle thrum of his beloved ship.

He tentatively reaches out, catching a stray piece of hair falling across Rose’s face. He lies next to her on the blanket breathing in the scent of vanilla until he can no longer fight the urge to _do something_. He’s scared, terrified, and so afraid of losing her or changing their friendship for the worse. She’s human and fragile and she’ll wither away like everyone always does.

He has to move, he has to back away, he has to stop thinking about all of the things he wants, because they’re not possible and they’re selfish. He has to find something to do that doesn’t allow him time to over think their situation.

Without Rose awake to watch him, it suddenly feels as though he doesn’t really have anything to do at all. Nothing worth doing alone at least.

When she does wake up and narrowly avoids hitting her head, she finds a paper flower sitting silent behind her ear. Just like the cranes, it is perfectly folded. Its stem is thick and its leaves are many. Delicately curled, the petals spread out amongst the leaves to reveal the centre, where more petals are swirled intricately like a rose.

“Breakfast is served.” The Doctor calls as he brings out a tray of waffles and strawberries and syrup and coffee and cream. “The TARDIS helped a bit.”

The lights flicker suddenly and the Doctor coughs.

“Okay, the TARDIS helped _a lot_ …”

“Breakfast in bed? Flowers? A girl could get used to this.” Rose smiles and the Doctor stares at her for a little longer than usual before excusing himself. Leaving her there with her extravagant breakfast wondering what it was that she said that was so wrong.

She doesn’t mention it again, but the Doctor still gives her the flowers whenever he’s made a new one and she takes it, smiling all the while.

 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

They hold on desperately to the levers. Daleks and Cybermen fly past into the breach and her hand slips and he screams so loudly that his throat burns. They reach out with fingers that can’t touch and in a flicker, Pete appears, catching Rose before she’s left to the Void. The Doctor is still reaching out when the gap in time seems to crumple up like a paper ball. Another failed attempt at making a frog or an intricate ostrich.

_Why don’t you try making a boat first or a crane?_

_Oh shut up, you._

On a beach in Norway a tear falls down his cheek. He whispers her name and disappears, taking all of her hopes and dreams with him.

 

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Jackie notices Rose idly folding her napkin at dinner for the fifth night in a row. Pete takes it off her and with great ease makes her a swan. He expects a smile but Rose can only manage to ignore the lump in her throat for long enough to say thank you and excuse herself from the table.

When they buy her stacks of squared sheets of paper she finds herself staring at them in bed instead of sleeping. She can’t help imagining that the fabric of time and space and the universe is just as fragile as the paper before her, and if the Doctor can fold it into a crane, or an elephant or a bear, then she can most certainly rip it in half to find her way back to him.

It turns out to be a little more complicated than that, but she manages it all the same until she’s back on that beach in Norway and the warm hand in hers is the Doctor’s, with one heart instead of two. One heart, and he’s giving it all to her.

 

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It’s strange at first. They fall into a routine of grinning and smiling and laughing easily enough but then there’s always a moment where the Doctor looks at her like he wants to kiss her, but if they were in the TARDIS he would walk away.

Except he doesn’t walk away. And they’re not in the TARDIS. They’re in an alternate universe where she has a father and a brother, and her Doctor only has one heart.

He doesn’t smile like nothing’s wrong. He doesn’t diffuse the situation or shout out that they are in dire need of fruit toast because all of a sudden he craves nothing else, and _do you know how they make fruit toast, Rose? It’s brilliant. I wonder who invented it? Let’s find out. Let’s visit them in the precise moment that they decide to put fruit inside of bread and decree that it be toasted! Let us go then you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky..._

He just waits. And in-between waiting, he sleeps. Rather a lot actually, and it’s Rose that’s up all night folding paper until the early hours of the morning trying to get her head around the fact that this Doctor is hers.

“What’s the count so far?” A voice interrupts her from her reverie. He’s there, staving off a yawn, standing in the doorway, a sparkle in his eyes.

“You remember?” She asks carefully, reminded of the flu, and breakfast I bed--sort of.

“Of course I do.” He whispers, sitting down, and reaching forward to touch her cheek. Her eyes close as she leans into the gentle touch with a sigh. A moment passes before Rose pulls away and hands the Doctor a wad of paper.

It’s a peace offering of sorts. Their tradition. Folding and unfolding until she’s yawning and falling asleep in his arms, watching with bleary eyes as the tension in his shoulders disappears the closer she gets to him. The longer they touch.

She wakes up to the blackest coffee and whitest eggs she’s ever seen.

“The oven’s strange.” He tells her, having failed completely at breakfast. “Too many knobbly bits…no instructions...couldn’t figure out how to switch it on for twenty minutes…”

As he trails off, she can take it no longer. He’s here, all for her, trying so hard, and she has to meet him half way. She takes his hand, leads him back into the living room, and lights the fire in the hearth. She lifts his t-shirt over his head and he carefully sweeps her shirt over her shoulders. They kiss, and while it’s nothing they haven’t done before, it feels different. It feels new.

The levee is broken. The dam falls away, crumbling at their feet with their discarded clothes. His hands explore her skin, motions so fluid and smooth as though they've been practising that very moment for eons (and really, they have, in dreams, where the universe isn't so screwed up and happiness is allowed if not _encouraged_.) They find each other in the night and it feels so damn good, the Doctor can’t believe he hadn’t done it before.

 

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Little elephants in shop windows, tiny birds on windowsills, swans all lined up in a row. Paddling across the plain of her body. Each crane perfectly balanced and elegantly folded. The largest swims in front and The Doctor places him just below Rose’s arm, soon followed by several more, getting smaller and smaller as they go.

“There’s no way you can fold one that small!” Rose exclaims as the Doctor picks up another square of paper, the smallest of all.

“Just you watch, Rose Tyler, I’ll you surprise you yet!”

“Doctor, you surprise me every day.” She smiles, head propped up on her hand as she lies on her side and lets the Doctor fold. The orange glow of the fire sets her hair alight and casts shades of burnt marigolds across the static birds sitting solemn on her bare skin.

He doesn’t reply. He doesn’t need to, but as dawn creeps in through the windows behind them, he holds his hand out to her, and in the crook of his palm lies a tiny paper-crane.

“It’s not a flower, but it’ll do.”

 

_-Fin._

 


End file.
